This is what I want

Why can't I just have one of these? It's the deal! Is my birthday coming? Hmmmm....

King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters ~ blatting

This is my wordy defense of my personal feelings towards the documentary named above. I only have to defend these feelings because people that I don't like so much LOVED this movie and talked about it ALL THE TIME before I got a chance to see it, so now that I'm not 100% IN LOVE with this movie it is assumed that I was subconsciously, or even knowingly tainted by these losers' glowing reviews. Probably, but who cares? I blat on.

The story being told by the filmmakers offers you almost no new or usefull information about life, America, video games or the world in general. I'm not saying you couldn't extrapolate volumes on the different nuances of American personalities and the development of modern human characteristics or compulsions. I'm saying that the amount of cold, hard data presented over the course of this film could have been condensed into an informative 10 minute segment. You're not watching King of Kong to learn.

Then why? The point of this movie is entertainment. Good guy versus bad guy (or more accurately, kind of immature guy versus infinitely more immature, I may go so far as to say stunted guy) It is an underdog story. To me, and I emphasize, TO ME it smacks of reality TV. It could be because the film crew was magically able to capture the key points of the story AS they happened. Man X picks up the phone to tell Man Y what's going down, and LUCKILY there's a camera crew in Man Y's house, ready to record his end of the call! Nifty. I got the feeling that the 'showdown' that this film is about (which never happens) might not have even materialized (as an idea, because it didn't ever materialize in reality) without some egging-on on the part of the documentarians. *This is a FEELING. Apparently there's hours of extras and behind-the-scenes footage that might convince me otherwise - but wouldn't the CONSTANT presense of a documentary film crew kind of, I dunno, prompt one to DO more in general?*

And then there's my issue with the interview camera work. I may just be sensitive, but when the camera has to be so close to a subject that the top of their head is cut off and we can see their dirty pores and skin conditions, I interpret that as a jab at the subject. It makes me feel bad. Also the locations of the interviews and the lighting of the interviews often just made the interview process seem like a joke that the live participants aren't in on. The subjects would just ramble on and on about life and gaming and pride, and while they were clearly trying to be very introspective and self-aware, but they never caught on to the absurdity of the whole situation. That made me feel bad.

The one thing I've learned about documentaries is that the filmmaker is a character in the film as much as anyone onscreen. You're seeing and hearing what they want you to see. You're not seeing and not hearing what they don't want you to see. You have to ask yourself, why did they show me this or that? So what do I remember seeing? A stereotyped subculture fulfilling its stereotype of being dorky, ugly, out of touch, emotionally stunted, living in a non-reality and totally OCD.

And THEN I think of all the jocky, hip, film-critiquing, movie-obsessed, college-aged, 'normal' looking people all over the place who are going to view these people through the director's eyes, and it makes me feel bad.

My personali-tay

INTP - "Architect". Greatest precision in thought and language. Can readily discern contradictions and inconsistencies. The world exists primarily to be understood. 3.3% of total population.

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)

Politics

I don't like it.

But here is a list of my reps and a copy of a letter I'm sending them all. If you're my neighbor, you can send these peeps letters too! I'm emailing them to save trees, though it would help the US Postal Service if I wrote them physical letters. Do you think a letter makes a bigger impact than an email? Hmmm....

Hello *gov person's name*,

I am just writing to express my feelings about the importance of wired broadband access for people in rural communities.

I work for a company located in Ossining, NY and I am supposed to be able to perform my job from home, but instead I rent office space from a kindhearted homeowner in the center of town.

My parents recently moved to Pleasant Brook, NY. My father has worked from home for a company in NYC for over 20 years. There is not one viable internet option at his new home, and he is also looking for office space in a nearby town.

Wireless broadband carriers are viable for casual internet users, but they impose caps on how much data one can transfer. Only with fiber-optic broadband services will there be adequate telecommuting capabilities in rural upstate New York. The introduction of cabled broadband services would also promote a healthy competition between providers that would benefit the general public.

Thank you for your time,
Rachel Robinson

So there's the message. I just sort of made it up on the spot. I feel that an elaborate amount of word-smithing might make me sound less middle-Americy. I first sent it to my congressman, Mike Arcuri. Next I looked up my senator, James L. Seward. They have pretty fly websites because they're higher up... Wonder what it's going to be like trying to get in touch with the people on the county levels?

Hmm..

I just got a great idea. I'm going to start a new blog and sign up for all my reps email updates with the email address that posts things directly to my blog. I'm a genius. Then I can review my local matters and actually know what the hell is going on in this state.

I'll post that link later and if you're local you can follow my NYS rural politics blog. Werd.

Opening Credits ~ Monkey Island

The opening credits of a movie are important. I don't read enough scripts. I don't read enough scripts to know how many of them really detail the opening credits. But I know they're important.

For the beginning of my Monkey Island movie picture this... The live-ish version of this, up to the part where they start listing creator names:




With this song -




And when the song gets "going" it turns into Bond like credits with Gov, Marley, sexy dancing islanders, monkeys... mystery... voodoo... you get the picture.

Digg Story: Quick Indian Cooking » Khichdi - Rice with lentils

Latest issue of Natural Health features my fave actress of ever,
Gabrielle Anwar. Coincidentally, she follows an Ayurvedic which I've
just started reading about, and she mentions her favorite food, khichdi,
in the article.

I searched khichdi and found the recipe blogged here.
http://digg.com/d1vqeW?e

---
"Quick Indian Cooking » Khichdi - Rice with lentils"
A traditional rice and lentil dish to comfort you whatever the reason
+1 person dugg this story.

sneak this in...

100 years ago people my age would be complaining the opposite.

Really, people?

And honestly, I won't believe in women's liberation until time-o-the-month humor becomes mainstream.


(never)

OH Fest... no, sorry this isn't really an Oneonta blog entry...

My boyfriend want's me to be friends with EVERYBODY... barring sociopaths and Nazis, I'm sure... we haven't really talked about that specific scenario. He also wants me to stop wasting my time with hypothetical situations.

I only want to befriend bright, bitter, intelligent, jaded people who write me emails like this:

"I'm going to Oneonta after work on Friday to see my favorite band in the entirety of creation (wow that's lofty) MewithoutYou. Yes, *** Name Omitted*** will be there. Yes her boyfriend's band is opening for them. Yes, I may have to talk to her or make uncomfortable conversation. But MAYBE I'll just bum a cigarette off of my friend Jon who's also coming and smoke outside after the show and make her feel so awkward at seeing my sin that she doesn't bother to acknowledge me. I have yet to decide."

So the rest of you can fuck off...
(Don't tell Joe I wrote that)

Bad time management at work (Twitter's fault)

So I am supposed to be close captioning the world's longest and most echo-y meeting. I elected myself to do this for the extra money but it is soooo haaaard to not fall asleep.

I haven't written in a while, though I've taken many showers where I come up with a great blog idea that I just know I'll pursue with reckless fervor once I'm dry.

But once I'm dry I have real world work to do. On computers. Which really makes me hate computers. Especially laptops. I hate my laptop. I need a desktop so that I can stop channeling so much bad energy into my poor laptop that now wants to install Roxio Media Manager every friggin time I start the damn thing up and it takes about five minutes to shut that process down and recover from whatever evil Roxio-based power that is gripping my processor.

Even now I've forgotten why I started this post.

...

..

.

Oh yeah. I am starting a podcast. I don't know when I will officially launch because I'm a very traditional "I'm my harshest critic" type person and I doubt that I will find anything I do worthy of the bandwidth. However I am going to rope friends into this with me so there. I'll end up posting our podcasts just for the secret joy of making them look stupid.

No, that's not true. I think that most of my friends are very good speakers, and when we go out we get almost too enraptured by our own speaking talent and wherever we go becomes a sort of traveling **** and Rachel show.

A podcast is the next obvious step in this evolution.

Don't tell Amber I mentioned evolution.

Also I came up with the idea (which might have been done) of the "Twinterview". I tweet now (which is somewhat embarrassing) and I was thinking a nice way to hone my interview skills would be to do short interviews with people I follow. Then I make them a little pop-up page with my podcast graphic and their twitter icon, a link to the audio and a short description of why they are interesting enough to be interviewed. I would then provide them with the link to the pop-up page and they can put it in their profile or wherever else they want it, or start litigation with designs to have me remove it from the interweb forever- whatev.

The purpose of these interviews would be professional promotion more than exploring the depths of their souls or political views or other smut like that which is best kept to a nice tight Twitter 140.

Who knows. Maybe I'll get other followers that want me to follow them so that they can get a nice Twinterview page and a permanent home on my as-of-yet nonexistent Twinterview blog.

Or maybe it will just be good audio for my next experimental film where I have a plan but then I knock the camera over and my actors go home early and I end with oblique footage of my mom petting her daschund in the shadows of a large picture window.

All this fun creativity and I have to go back to transcribing a budget committee meeting. *Spew*

Nostalgia

Good blog idea

So ... when I start my super-awesome podcast/blog I'm going to poll my 20 something year old girlfriends and create some ultimate wedding playlists. I figure if you're planning wedding during a recession the first thing you could lose is the cheesy DJ. Plus now that you can buy one song at a time instead of whole albums... the possibilities are endless.

Look foward to: Great things.

Best MP3 Player around?

I'd like to get this for my little brother for his birthday... then I would like him to get me one for my birthday.




Then the world would be a better place.

Look forward to 2009 podcast

As soon as you buy me one of these. I'd like to start a podcast with my friend Amber. I tweeted about it so I MUST be serious. Hey, I'll talk about Oneonta and Cooperstown in the podcast... then www.oneontaonthemap.com and www.cooperstownonthemap.com will link to it and we'll be famous.

Some Ways to Spend too Much time accomplishing little to Nothing

#1. Read some humorous blogs.

#2. Write a to-do list. Stare at your to-do list. PRIORITIZE your to-do list (this involves a re-write). Get to work on your to-do list, making sure disregard the order you have placed things in and instead do them in the order they are most fun/convenient for you.

#3. Give away your best ideas, preferably to people who have more time and energy to accomplish them. For instance instead of simply adapting the the LucasArts game Secret of Monkey Island to a full length feature feature film, I'm going to blog about it in an open and public forum for anyone who googles "monkey" to see. It's nice if you give them hints at the sheer greatness of your idea (Shia Labeouf as Guybrush Threepwood -hello?)

#4. Isn't there a pet somewhere you're supposed to be feeding? This includes Tamogachis. And yes, you should go pick up that watch battery. You know you've been thinking about it.

#5. Contract an illness. If I had known how to document things in third grade then I would have been able to prove that this is actually easier said than done.

#6. Update your twitter. Make sure that you make allusions that none of your followers would understand. If your parents follow you - swear a lot.

#7. Be less consistant with your daily spelling and punctuation.

To be continued...